Style Manuals I: Manuscript PreparationWeek of September 30

Deliverables Due

Contribute to the Trouble with Usage discussion thread on Basecamp (instructions in the instructor's first post)

Assigned Work

To Read

Project 2 Description

CMS16: Ch. 2

To Do

Locate an academic journal in your field of study, and find its instructions for manuscript preparation. Post a link to Basecamp that summarizes the journal's requirements, and the ways in which it differs from the Chicago Manual of Style.

Style Manuals II: Documentation Week of October 7

Deliverables Due Wednesday, October 9

Locate an academic journal in your field of study, and find its instructions for manuscript preparation. Post a link to Basecamp that summarizes the journal's requirements, and the ways in which it differs from the Chicago Manual of Style.

Assigned Work

Locate a Wikipedia article with a Bibliography (that's different from the Notes
and references section; see this entry on Terry
Thomas for an example) that has at least 10 sources, including books and print
articles. Take 10 of the sources, and write each source according to 1) CMS Note
Style; 2) CMS Bibliography Style; and 3) CMS Author-Date Reference List Style.
Email to instructor.

Proofreading Week of October 14

Assigned Work

Email instructor with your chosen article for Project 2 ASAP, if you haven’t already done so

Editing Exercise #4 (actually a proof-reading exercise; PDF of exercise posted in Basecamp; email instructor with the Dropbox link to your marked-up copy of the PDF)

Work Week Week of October 21

Assigned Work

To Do

Finish Project 2

To Read

TE5: Ch. 24

Comprehensive Editing: Style & Organization Week of October 28

Deliverables Due

Project 2 Due Friday, November 1

Assigned Work

To Read

TE5: Ch. 14, 15, 16, & 17

To Do

Edit the paragraph in Discussion & Application #4 on page 230 of TE5,
according to the prompt in #5 (specify which agent you’ve chosen) and post in the
“Comprehensive Editing for Style” discussion thread on Basecamp;
respond to at least one other student’s edit based on the questions in #6 (pp.
320-231).

Email the instructor with your plans to work individually or with a partner on
Project 3. The partner should be CC’d on your email, if you’re choosing that
option (only one of you needs to email).

Comprehensive Editing: Design & Illustration Week of November 4

Deliverables Due

Edited paragraph in Discussion & Application #4 on page 230 of TE5, according to
the prompt in #5 (specify which agent you’ve chosen) posted in the “Comprehensive Editing for Style” discussion thread on Basecamp; response
to at least one other student’s edit based on the questions in #6 (pp. 320-231).

Email the instructor with your plans to work individually or with a partner on Project
3. The partner should be CC’d on your email, if you’re choosing that option (only one
of you needs to email).

Assigned Work

ASAP: Email instructor regarding Project 3 (are you working as a team, or individually)

CMS Bibliography Redux (details on the Basecamp site)

Editing for Global Contexts & Internationalization Week of November 11

Deliverables Due

CMS Bibliography Redux (details on the Basecamp site)

Assigned Work

To Read

TE5: Ch. 20

CMS16: Ch. 11 (11.1-11.13; skim remainder for familiarity)

To Do

Take roughly 300 words of copy from anywhere in your software project's website
for Project 3 (if you're working with a partner, each of you should choose a
different piece of copy; coordinate that yourselves) and use it to complete
Discussion & Application question 1 from TE5 (p. 316; use the copy from the
website instead of one of your own papers). Post to this Basecamp thread,
with a link to the page where the copy originated.

Work Week Week of November 18

Deliverables Due

Discussion & Application question 1 from TE5 (p. 316; use about 300 words of copy
from your Project 3 proejct's website instead of one of your own papers). Post to this Basecamp thread, along with a link to the page where the copy originated.

Assigned Work

To Do

By Friday, November 22, email the instructor with questions that you have about
your work on Project 3.

Requirements

Your selected article must:

cover a non-technical topic

have running copy of approximately 1500-2000 words

Your copy for marking should be:

Prepared in PDF format. One way to do this is to install the Readability plugin
for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox,
and print to PDF from the resulting Readability rendering of your chosen article.
(Although Wikipedia provides the ability to download PDFs of their articles, you
should learn to create copyediting-friendly PDFs from any website, using your own
tools.)

Sent as a Dropbox link in raw unedited form to the instructor immediately upon your
choosing the article. No two students are permitted to mark the same article,
so email the instructor with your choice as soon as possible.

Printed and marked with a pen or pencil and scanned, or marked digitally with drawing
tools that allow you to create the marks described in Chapter 4 of Rude and Eaton.

Submitted to the instructor in final, marked form as a Dropbox link to the PDF

Deliverables & Milestones

An email with a Dropbox link to your unedited article in PDF format (see suggested process
in the Requirements section above), submitted to the instructor as soon as possible.
Due ASAP.

An email with a Dropbox link to your edited article, in PDF format (marked on paper and
photographed/scanned, or marked digitally using drawing tools in a PDF program).
Due Sept. 19

A self-critique memo that evaluates your project, your use of the Wikipedia Manual of
Style on your chosen article, and your progress in the class to this point (2-3
paragraphs; submit in the email containing your Dropbox link to the final edited copy).
Due Sept. 19

Bonus points for submitting your work to Wikipedia; email instructor with the URL(s) that
point to your changes to the article on en.wikipedia.org.
Optional; due Sept. 19

Project 2: Editing for Academic Publication Due November 1

Project 2 prepares you to edit manuscripts for academic publication (which you will return
to for an actual client in the final project). Choose a paper at the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN)’s Research Papers Series. You can choose a paper from
any of their subject areas, but the paper must be listed as appearing in a “Working Paper
Series” (see this page for examples in economics; what you cannot choose is a paper in the
"Accepted Paper Series") and edit the first 4000 words and the first 20 entries of its
bibliography/reference list. Refer to The Chicago Manual of Style for all
matters of grammar and usage, as well as for citation.

While you will of course be working on sentence-level edits, keep in mind also issues of
style, clarity, and the overall organization of the manuscript. Query the author frequently;
academics are a special breed when it comes to feeling protective over their writing.

Project Goals

Learn to mark up copy intended for academic publication, including working with academic
authors

Apply The Chicago Manual of Style to all grammar, usage, and citation issues

Prepare an article’s reference list according to The Chicago Manual of Style;
submit as a separate PDF document

Deliverables & Milestones

A hyperlink to your chosen article’s download page on SSRN, emailed to the instructor for
approval. Due ASAP.

A PDF of your marked-up article, submitted to the instructor as a Dropbox link. In-text
citation should match either the Bibliography or Author-Date style (hint: if current style
uses a date-style system, use author-date). Due November 1.

A PDF of the article’s first twenty references as a CMS-style Bibliography or Author-Date
Reference List, using the article’s first 20 items. Submit also as a Dropbox link. Due
November 1.

A self-critique memo that evaluates your project and your progress in the class to this
point (2-3 paragraphs; submit via email). Due November 1.

Requirements

Your chosen article must:

Have at least 4000 words of body copy, including any figure/image captions but NOT including any extended equations or data tables

Have at least 20 items in the reference list/bibliography/works cited page

Your edited copy must:

Be marked up for grammar and usage, with many author queries and perhaps suggestions
for substantive, global revisions (major cuts, reorganization, etc.)

Have an amended a bibliography of 20 items that follows either the CMS Bibliography or
Author-Date Reference-list style; DO NOT just mark the bibliography items. Prepare a
fresh bibliography in your word processor of choice, and submit as a PDF.

Project 3: Comprehensive Editing of Technical Manuals Due December 5

For this project, the instructor will assign you an open-source software project’s Web-based
technical manual and project website, both of which you will comprehensively edit. You will
also create a short in-house style manual for the software project’s manual and website.

Project Goals

Learn to apply principles of comprehensive editing, including style, organization, and
visual design

Learn to comprehensively edit for internationalization and global contexts, as represented
by open-source software projects

Learn to work with complex, technical material that may be beyond your comprehension, and
edit it for professional audiences (the manual) and non-technical audiences (the website)

Deliverables & Milestones

Decide whether to work on this project individually, or with another student; students
should email the instructor with their preference by November 4. Instructor will assign
then assign a project to each group or individual student.

A content audit of all of a project's technical manual pages, and its accompanying
website; present this as a table or a stylesheet, with URLs, page titles, and a
one-sentence content summary.

Ten comprehensively edited pages of a project’s technical manual

Five comprehensively edited pages of a project’s website

An in-house style manual for the project, presented as a PDF, that includes illustrative
screenshots from the project’s materials as well as improved examples resulting from
your comprehensive editing. The manual should cover language usage and style, as well as
typography/visual-design styles.

A self-critique memo that evaluates your project and your progress in the class for this
semester (2-3 paragraphs; submit via email; students working in pairs will each submit
their own memo, and also evaluate their partner’s contributions to the project)

Project 4 (COM529 Only): The Scholarship of Technical Editing Due December 5

COM529 students only: for this project, you will review the most recent ten years of a
prominent academic journal in technical and professional communication, and compile an
annotated bibliography of articles related to technical editing.

Instructor

Policies

Course Description

This course covers the theory, principles, and intensive practice of various forms of
editing, including basic copyediting, comprehensive editing, and proofreading. The
course includes broad coverage of grammar and mechanics, usage and style, and the
rhetorical dimensions of dictionaries, style guides/manuals, and other reference works.
The course covers the traditional symbols for editorial marks on paper or paper-like
copy (e.g., PDFs), but also offers a look at the use of wikis and version control for
handling the editing of born-digital writing.

Technical editing is just one of many professional activities that occurs almost
exclusively in a remote, digital setting. The online nature of this course emphasizes
and reflects the importance of learning to work remotely. As an online course, Technical
Editing is meant to be more than an opportunity for students to learn while wearing
pajamas. Students will learn to collaborate and communicate effectively in a remote,
digitally mediated environment for individual and group projects.

Required Technologies

Recommended Technologies

A computer or smartphone with a camera, for video chatting with the instructor and other students

Grading Policy: COM425 Students

Project 1: 15pts

Project 2: 25pts

Project 3: 30pts

Weekly Assignments (total): 30pts (22pts + 8 bonus)

TOTAL: 100pts

A = 90+ pts; B = 80-89pts; C = 70-79pts; D = 60-69pts; E =< 59 pts

Grading Criteria

A - Student has turned in all required components of a project, the work is
exceptional in quality, and reflects the student’s dedication to adjusting the project
to his or her own interests.

B - Student has turned in all required components of a project, and the work is
exceptional for undergraduate work.

C - Student has turned in all required components of a project and submitted work that
is acceptable as undergraduate level.

D - Student has turned in all required components of a project, but the work is below
undergraduate level.

E - Student has not turned in all required components of a project.

Grading Policy: COM529 Students

Project 1: 15pts

Project 2: 25pts

Project 3: 30pts

Project 4: 15pts

Weekly Assignments (total): 15pts (11pts / + 4 bonus)

TOTAL: 100pts

A = 90+ pts; B= 80-89pts; C=70-79pts; E =< 69 pts

Grading Criteria

A - Student has turned in all required components of a project, the work is
exceptional in quality, and reflects the student's dedication to adjusting the project
to his or her own interests.

B - Student has turned in all required components of a project and submitted work that
is acceptable as graduate level.

C - Student has turned in all required components of a project, but the work is below
graduate level.

E - Student has not turned in all required components of a project.

Course Technology Policy

Because technology is an essential part of contemporary editing as well as online
learning, proficiency and skill with technology is essential to your success in this
class. Difficulty with technology is not an acceptable excuse for being unprepared for
class.

If you are having trouble with technology or any other material covered in this course,
it is your professional responsibility to do research beyond the resources and guidance
provided in class and find materials that work for you. I also encourage all students to
meet with me during my office hours or at another arranged time. I prefer that you
contact me via email or GChat well in advance of assignment and project deadlines.

All of that being said, I am committed to providing the most accessible online course I
possibly can. I have gone to great lengths to make the course website accessible on
mobile and desktop devices, for screen readers, etc. I have also chosen services for
video, collaboration, and so on that I believe to be mobile friendly. If you should
find that any aspect of the course is not working on your phone/tablet/computer, please
contact me immediately via email.

Weekly Assignments and Electronic Discussion

Your timely submission of deliverables and active participation in the electronic
discussions for this class are required both for your own success and for
the success of the class as a whole. However, if you absolutely must miss a discussion
or be late with a weekly deliverable, please contact me ahead of time via email.

Academic Honesty

As with any course at IIT, you are expected to uphold the Code of Academic Honesty as
described in the
IIT Student Handbook).
All work for this course must be your own original effort, including print and digital
page design and computer code. Summarizations and quotations of text, as well as any use
of open-source code libraries and images not of your own making, should be clearly cited
as legally and ethically warranted and rhetorically appropriate. Access, storage,
dissemination, and other use of data from third-party sources must conform to the
source’s terms of service, licensing, and other relevant legal and ethical restrictions.

If you are at all uncertain as to whether you are submitting work that in whole or in
part may violate the Code of Academic Honesty, please contact me immediately and before
the work is due. The consequences of academic dishonesty are severe. Any student who
violates the Code of Academic Honesty will be subject to expulsion from this course with
a failing grade, and I will report the student to the Chair of the Department of
Humanities, who may take additional disciplinary action, including reporting
violations to the relevant offices of Undergraduate or Graduate Academic Affairs.

Special Needs Statement

Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with documented disabilities. In
order to receive accommodations, students must obtain a letter of accommodation from the
Center for Disability Resources. The Center for Disability Resources (CDR) is located in
IIT Tower, 3424 S. State Street - 1C3-2 (on the first floor). Contact the Center by
telephone at 312-567-5744 or via email at disabilities@iit.edu

Students who have any difficulty (either permanent or temporary) that might affect their
ability to perform in class should contact me privately, either in person or via email,
at the start of the semester or as a documented difficulty arises. Methods, materials,
or deadlines will be adapted as necessary to ensure equitable participation for all
students.